Many industries have struggled to find a lubricant that contains suitable lubricating properties and is easily deliverable onto the part being lubricated. Some industries find that a lubricant having ideal properties is not available in a form suitable for proper delivery. For example, a liquid lubricant may contain ideal lubricating properties, but it may be difficult to introduce a liquid lubricant onto the parts that need lubricating.
One industry that has struggled to find effective lubricants is the railroad industry. One reason for this struggle is because of the wide range of temperatures and frictions that lubricants used on trains must endure. For example, in the Midwest, lubricant is needed on trains that function when the temperature is ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months, and zero degrees Fahrenheit in the winter months. For over fifty years railroads have used a variety of methods to reduce the wear caused by friction between the wheel flanges and the gauge face of the rail with which it comes into contact. Wear is caused when a wheel flange contacts the gauge face of the track when the car is passing through a curve or when the car moves from side-to-side while moving down a straight track. Railroads and transits have realized they can save substantial amounts of money in lowered maintenance and equipment replacements if lubrication is applied. Reducing friction by lubrication results in fuel savings due to reduced drag forces and also in noise reduction due to elimination of metal to metal contact by a thin film of lubricant.
Several methods have been used in the railroad industry, including one method wherein liquid lubricant is sprayed onto the wheel flange of the locomotive. Lubricant is then passed back through the train as successive wheels come in contact with the rail and pick up some of the lubricant. There are several problems associated with the use of liquid lubricant, even though the liquid lubricant may contain suitable lubricating properties. One problem with this spray method is that it is difficult to control where the sprayed lubricant is applied. The lubricant can be inadvertently sprayed on top of the rail which can cause the train wheels to slip inhibiting the friction needed to propel the train forward or to slow or stop the train. Further, maintenance time and expenses for keeping oil spray devices in working order has been found to be excessive.
An alternative method for applying lubricant to train wheel flanges has been to use a solid lubricant stick or rod. The stick or rod lubricant is applied by various mechanical means to the flanges of the wheel of a locomotive or railcar. Such prior art solid lubricants also have several inherent problems, even though they may contain suitable lubricating properties. First, it is difficult to control the rate at which the stick lubricant “wears” against the train wheel or other industrial article because of varying wheel speeds, friction, and heat produced by the locomotive or the railcar wheels. If the lubricant stick wears too slowly, the wheel flange may be inadequately lubricated, if the lubricant stick wears too quickly, the lubricant may be inefficiently wasted causing it to be used too quickly. In an effort to control the wear rate of solid lubricants, many prior art solid lubricants have added environmentally hazardous metallic powders because of their anti-wear properties. The problem with these metallic powders is that they represent a hazard to the environment as well as to the railroad workers.
Other industries have encountered similar problems wherein they require a suitable delivery means for applying the appropriate solid, semi-solid, or liquid lubricant that is safe to use. Therefore, there is a need for a lubricant delivery means adapted for allowing the control of the lubricity and the safe wear rate of the lubricant regardless of whether the lubricant is solid, semi-solid, or liquid.